


The Night After the End of the World

by CampySpaceSlime



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn, M/M, crowley can't handle emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 04:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19349698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampySpaceSlime/pseuds/CampySpaceSlime
Summary: Aziraphale (angel) and Crowley (demon) wait for a bus





	The Night After the End of the World

            Sitting on a bench with Crowley in the dark was a much different experience than sitting next to him on a bench any other time (occasions for which were abundant through the years, even when they didn’t, strictly speaking, _need_ to have one of their clandestine little meetings, they still sort of made it a bit of a habit nonetheless). In the light of day, it was rather easy to forget that Crowley is, by even the most conservative of estimates, a demon, and Aziraphale is, even an atheist would be forced to admit, an angel, but now, in the creepy, crawly darkness and sitting so close Crowley’s abnormally hot body heat was rushing over Aziraphale, he felt a sort of twinkling of fear in his celestial heart. Between the two of them, they had just successfully averted the Apocalypse (the humans had something to do with it too, Aziraphale supposed) but now, with Crowley so close, it had to be fear, hadn’t it? making Aziraphale’s throat tight and face hot and it was fear, wasn’t it, that made his hands start to tremor? 

            They had lived to see another day, the two of them. And it hadn’t required a sojourn to Alpha Centauri either. The Earth was still here, with all the sushi and crepes Aziraphale could ever want, and Crowley was still here, and that felt immensely important somehow, more important than the crepes even.

            “You can stay at my place if you’d like,” Crowley had said. And the thing like fear had risen to a fever pitch inside Aziraphale. He babbled about their respective sides and tried to ignore the change in Crowley’s posture that meant he was digging into the storehouses of his essential nature, and then he dangled temptation before Aziraphale’s face like he’d been born for the job, which, of course, he had.

            “We’re on our own side,” he said.

            Aziraphale knew the unspoken caveat: so we can do whatever we want.

            Through the centuries, Aziraphale had almost gotten used to Crowley’s little whispered temptations. It didn’t help that he was clever and wily and knew the exact buttons to push (showing up to the bookshop with a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild or some Amedei Prendimé chocolate or a special edition Wilde, a sly grin on his face) and Aziraphale knew he ought to resist _every_ time, but sometimes, very rarely mind you, don’t get any ideas, he would let Crowley win. He thought for a moment that perhaps this should be one of those times, remembering the full-bodied taste of the wine Crowley had brought him the last time he just _had_ to have Aziraphale’s help in some mischievous goings on. And really, in the grand scheme of things, Aziraphale kept telling himself, did it really matter that he occasionally gave in to Crowley, when, after all, wasn’t it important to help your neighbors when they needed it? More important, say, than much of anything else? God was love after all, and Crowley needed some of _that_ , Lord knew.

            Aziraphale almost gasped thinking about it then, on the bench waiting for the bus: this love business. If one could love someone out of Hell, wouldn’t Aziraphale be obligated, indeed, to do it? If love could make a demon stop being a demon? Well, there was nowhere in the Bible that said that it couldn’t happen. Plenty of instances suggesting that it could, feasibly, be done (if you squinted at the book in just the right light). So really, it was Aziraphale’s heaven-sent _duty_ , his sacred prerogative, to love Crowley. A job, he found, he was remarkably good at.

            So when the bus squealed to a stop before them and they boarded, and Crowley oozed into the seat next to the window, Aziraphale sat beside him and quite nonchalantly slid his hand into Crowley’s warm grip, the length of his arm pressed against the length of Crowley’s, and then he sleepily settled more comfortably into the seat.

            “You know, you did a really nice thing today,” Aziraphale said.

            “Well, you don’t have to insult me,” Crowley grumbled. He liked to pretend no one could see his eyes from behind his sunglasses, but Aziraphale could glimpse them looking at where their hands met before quickly flicking away out the window, then back again, a blush spreading high on Crowley’s cheeks. “You know, you possessed someone today. That’s positively demonic.”

            “I – Well,” Aziraphale flustered about, starting to grumble himself. He pulled his hand away and crossed his arms over his chest. “It wasn’t an _evil_ , though. More a _necessary_ evil.

            “Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to,” Crowley shrugged. His thigh brushed against Aziraphale’s. “Not sure why you want to keep up the holier-than-thou act though. As they say, only the good die young.”

            “Who? Who says that?” Aziraphale asked with the distracted tone of someone who nearly always considers themselves to be unerringly right.

            “Billy Joel.”

            “Hmm. I don’t think I’ve read any of his books of prophecy.”

            Crowley made a hissing sound that was almost a laugh and sank further into the seat, his long legs at sharp angles before him. He leaned against the window and they lapsed into a comfortable silence for a moment, Crowley holding his arm out, palm up, in an awkward position that he tried to make look natural as he also tried to make his hand look inviting should Aziraphale have any designs to hold it once again. Aziraphale, for his part, ignored him.

            Likewise, Crowley ignored the fact that Aziraphale did not get off the bus at the stop closest to his bookstore, but instead got off with Crowley himself and purposefully began the half block march to Crowley’s flat. All this Aziraphale did with a determined set to him, as of someone who had made a particularly important decision and expected everything else to fall in line with it. Crowley strode along beside him.

            Aziraphale couldn’t remember the exact moment when he had decided he was going to listen to Crowley, if it had even been a fully conscious one. He found it difficult, wherever Crowley was concerned, to do the things that he was supposed to do, and he knew that on the short list of things which he should do, taking Crowley up on his offer was not one of them. But really, it was just one night. And they had just saved the world. And so what that Crowley’s clothes were singed and his hair still smelled like the hellfire that had sent the Bentley to its grave? So what that even under all that, Crowley’s natural brimstone odor of evil had started to pick up a certain charm to it? Tomorrow their respective head offices might decide to do something highly unpleasant to them, so really, what could one night of bending the rules really do?

            “Perhaps,” Aziraphale suggested, looking completely at ease despite the roiling bit of turmoil within him, as Crowley unlocked his front door and held it open for him, “you should offer me a drink tonight.” He kicked his shoes off and neatly sat on Crowley’s austere couch as if he’d been there a million times before but Crowley could count on one hand the amount of trips Aziraphale had made to grace Crowley’s flat with his presence.

            Crowley rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. “Oh?” he said. He slouched his way into his kitchen before coming back with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. He flopped down heavily next to Aziraphale and rolled his head over his shoulder to look at him. “I don’t have anything fruity for you, you know, like you like. Just this.” He shook the bottle.

            “No matter,” Aziraphale replied. “Will this get me drunk?”

            “It ought to.”

            “Well, hand it over then.”

            Crowley went to pour a glass, but Aziraphale grabbed for the bottle instead and took a few swigs before he handed it back. He leaned back against the hard couch Crowley had chosen for his flat, and thought it felt very much like their favorite bench they always met on at St. James’ park.

            Crowley recovered from his surprise over Aziraphale’s boldness rather quickly, and poured them each a shot. Which quickly turned into another. Followed by yet another. Until the bottle was pretty well empty and they were both pretty well pickled.        

            “Can you believe,” Aziraphale hiccupped. He had moved into a slightly more sprawling position on the couch, dangling his empty glass from his numb fingertips, having forgotten he even held it. “Can you believe,” he started again, looking with shining eyes over at Crowley, who was slumped on the other end of the sofa, “that the boy, the, erm, Adversary, the… the Adam! Was it? Yes, him, that he turned out completely normal without our meddling?”

            “Well, yes, if you can count levitating and bending reality to his very will ‘completely normal’,” Crowley replied, slurring his words. “Bang up job we did. Just really… just really bloody brilliant. Tip top. Our whole plan of taking credit for the upbringing of the Antichrist and all that. We really did a monumentally amazing job. I wonder how young Warlock is getting on now, anyhow?” As Crowley began to drunkenly speculate on the wellbeing of the faux Antichrist, Aziraphale found himself leaning toward him, ostensibly to hear him better, but really, Aziraphale wasn’t much paying attention to his words so much as now that Crowley had taken his sunglasses off, Aziraphale noticed that his eyes were not so much pure yellow, but they were flecked with these remarkable little veins of gold that caught the light of the lamp just so.

            “Crowley,” Aziraphale said before he could stop himself, just as the demon was bragging about how he had once hellishly influenced Warlock that he must always leave the toilet seat up when he was done, “Crowley. I… I do believe I love you.”

            A strange sort of choking sound came out of Crowley’s throat then, which ended in a curt, “ah. Ok.” Crowley coughed to try and cover any other untoward noises, and looked over to search Aziraphale’s face. Finding nothing but earnestness there, he went on, “ok, well, um, do you love me, you know, say, like ‘oh what a good chum that Crowley. A real pal’. Or do you love me more, hmm, lustily?”

            “What do you mean by that?” Aziraphale asked, “I mean, I think I know but… ‘Lustily’?” He said the last word in a friendly mockery of the lisp Crowley sometimes regressed to when he seemed to have forgotten how to speak with a human tongue instead of a snake’s.

            “Oh, you know.” Crowley grumbled. He made a rude gesture with his fingers. And then, because he was quite thoroughly drunk, he made a horrible, obscene sound and made a motion as if he was holding a long, invisible rod that he then, rather vigorously, thrust into and out of his mouth.

            “Are you quite finished?” Aziraphale said as this went on.

            “No. But I’m about to.” He made that horrible groaning sound again, crossed his eyes, and lifted his scrawny hips off of the couch. He then magicked up a handkerchief out of thin air and pretended to wipe himself off, acting as if his pants were sodden, before getting to his feet and taking a dramatic bow. He must have thought he looked rather clever, but he mostly just looked drunk, and he stumbled forward to lean against a wall, as the world had begun to spin rather alarmingly.

            “You know, you really are unbearable sometimes,” Aziraphale muttered. He gingerly sat his glass down. “Makes me wonder why I love you at all.”

            From his new position against the wall, Crowley shut his eyes tight. “Oh Satan preserve me,” he whined. “There’s that word again.”

            “What? ‘Unbearable’?”

            “Ha. Ha.”

            Something brave must have lived in that whiskey bottle because Aziraphale suddenly did not feel the least bit afraid of all the wrath and firepower of Heaven. And he no longer felt so confined to the box he’d been so diligently strict to uphold. He couldn’t stop remembering how the world would be around for another day at least and, while tomorrow wasn’t certain, what with both of their offices highly displeased with their individual conduct, they had tonight. And Aziraphale realized that, for six thousand years, he had had no one else, not truly, but Crowley. And in the past week he had threatened and cajoled him more that he had in centuries, but it all felt, he had to admit, a great deal more like flirtation that it had any right to.

            And now he looked over at Crowley, his arms crossed, slumped against the wall, mouth-breathing noisily, and something in Aziraphale began to break open.

            “You know, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, sighing with exasperation, “in all of this, I think _you_ are the thing that is the _most_ ineffable.”

            “Me?” Crowley said, indignant. He pushed himself off the wall and took a couple steps, as unsteady as a colt, before he sank in a heap to the floor. “Ineffable, you say? I’ll have you know…” he paused to hiccup (he really is a lightweight, Aziraphale thought), “you should know, that I am _highly_ effable. There are absolutely _legions_ of lesser demons just _dying_ to eff me.” He pointed his finger angrily in Aziraphale’s direction. “But only one angel,” he said and here his voice started to drop, becoming something of a whisper, “whom I would let have the honor.”

            Suddenly the room felt very small and very hot and Aziraphale began to shake like one of Crowley’s plants. He took a handful of sharp, quick breaths, realizing with a start that Crowley’s flat didn’t just smell like that brimstone (more like burnt marshmallow, or even toasted chocolate, now that Aziraphale thought about it) scent of him, or the hair-raising perfume of evil that demons left in their wake, but under all that, faint but unmistakable, there was Aziraphale’s favorite smell of all: love.

            Oh, it covered everything. Crowley loved that dramatic, high-backed throne in the other room. And he loved his little statue of the angels homoerotically wrestling (Aziraphale always acted like he hadn’t noticed it). And he loved each and every one of his houseplants, even the one he’d pretended to put down the garbage disposal, but had really found a sill with better light for in another room. But most of all, Crowley loved _him_ , Aziraphale.

            “Ah!” Aziraphale said, absolutely delighted. “You love me too!”

            “I do not!” Crowley argued from the floor.

            “Oh, but you do!”

            With a pop, Aziraphale sobered up, whiskey sloshing back into the bottle. He joined Crowley on the floor, not minding that he was wrinkling his trousers, and he brought the demon close, hugging him to his chest. Crowley, he noticed, was still drunk and had suddenly, and very obviously begun to sob.

            “Goodness,” Aziraphale said. And now he patted Crowley on the back as if he was a cat struggling to hack up a difficult hairball, but one that was made of pure emotion rather than fur, and he let Crowley bury his face in his white shirt, which quickly darkened as Crowley’s tears soaked him. Crowley, for his part, only got worse the more Aziraphale tried to comfort him, blubbering and keening incoherently.

            “There, there,” Aziraphale cooed over the half-strangled gasping sounds Crowley was making. “Let it out.”

            “This isn’t about you, you know,” Crowley said, his breath warm against Aziraphale’s chest, and his voice ragged. “I just… I miss my Bentley.”

            “Uh huh,” Aziraphale replied. He, of course, was well aware of the penchant demons had for lying.

            Aziraphale settled in more comfortably (as comfortable as one could get on the floor of Crowley’s sparse flat) and maneuvered Crowley, who had become as pliable as a doll, until he had Crowley’s head in his lap, the rest of the demon’s body sprawled out across the floor, and Aziraphale ran his hands through Crowley’s red hair, remembering quite fondly, the various styles he’d adopted for it over the millennia. Crowley’s eyes were screwed shut and the sobbing soon dissolved into half-hearted sniffles.

            “Perhaps you ought to sober up,” Aziraphale suggested not unkindly, as Crowley hiccupped. “And maybe you should talk to me.”

            “Pick one of those,” Crowley muttered. “I can’t do both.” He sighed. “We could have died today, you know. Not just been discorporated. But dissolved. Disintegrated. No more being, only been. Like poor Ligur, boiling away.”

            “I suppose you’re right,” Aziraphale conceded. “Adam playing with reality could have just wished us out of existence.” He paused. “Though I am certainly glad he did not.”

            Crowley gave a quick nod of agreement.

            “We’re in it now, huh?” he said and Aziraphale just silently continued to stroke his hair. “You make such an awful angel, angel. You didn’t do what you were told.” He turned his head slightly and Aziraphale started when he left a chaste kiss on the angel’s thigh. “But for all that, I think that makes you a much better… friend.”

            “Crowley…” Aziraphale’s voice was the softest thing that Crowley had ever experienced. Softer than the down on a baby duck. Softer than a thousand fluffy comforters. Softer than the clouds themselves. “Crowley. My best friend. My only friend.” He leaned forward and kissed Crowley on his temple, which sent such a thrill through Aziraphale that he did it again. When he went in for a third pass, Crowley turned over and their eyes met, blue to yellow, and Aziraphale had already committed to the motion, so he brought his lips down, kissing Crowley on the cheek.

            Straightening back up, Aziraphale regarded Crowley. His eyes were a little puffy from crying, his nose and cheeks ruddy, his eyes shiny with drink, but he parted his lips ever so slightly, maybe to say something, maybe just to breathe better, but before Aziraphale could think too hard about what he was doing, he leaned down again and captured those lips with his own. He could feel Crowley’s whole body tense and then just as quickly, it relaxed, and then surged up as Crowley got to his knees and proceeded to kiss him furiously. Crowley’s hands went everywhere: racing up and down Aziraphale’s arms, starting to undo the buttons of his vest, and then grabbing both sides of Aziraphale’s face to hold him steady as Crowley nipped at his bottom lip.

            Aziraphale had been kissed before, many a time, but never this aggressively. It made his heart, at turns, squeeze tightly and, at turns, race too fast, and made something pleasant and urgent happen in his groin, which had not really happened before. Well, only a handful of times. Really. And part of Aziraphale was content with simply letting Crowley continue, but the other part knew it was a distraction so Aziraphale didn’t have the time or the freedom of mouth to try and get him to talk about anything emotional.

            It was a good effort, but Aziraphale was made of tougher stuff than that. He pulled back, gasping, and took a few deep breaths, his heart pounding in his chest, before he glared sternly at Crowley.

            “Crowley,” he growled. “Talk to me.”

            Crowley made a frustrated noise in his throat and dropped his forehead onto Aziraphale’s shoulder. “No talking,” he grumbled. He brought his hands up Aziraphale’s sides.

            “Oh really now,” Aziraphale huffed. “For a demon, you really are a big baby.”

            “And for an angel, you really are a right git.”

            ‘You know I don’t deserve that.”

            “Don’t you?”

            Aziraphale pushed Crowley gently off his lap and gave a loud, theatrical yawn as he got to his feet. “I’m beat,” he said, “saving the Universe and all. Thanks for letting me stay at yours. Like a good host, I’m sure you’ve offered me the bed. You can sleep on the couch, right?” Aziraphale had never actually seen Crowley’s bedroom but he determinedly chose a dark hallway anyway, confident as could be.

            “Oh my Go— Satan,” Crowley said, still on the floor. He pulled all manner of faces at Aziraphale’s retreating back. “Are you really blue-balling me right now? Aren’t demons the ones that are supposed to be good at torture?” The last few words he had to yell as Aziraphale disappeared into the bowels of the flat.

            Only silence answered him.

            Anger and embarrassment and fear and yes, even affection, swirled around in Crowley’s gut and made his blood feel like ice. The whiskey had burned through him and he was proud to say that he was only a little tipsy and the room’s spin had begun to right itself. He kept thinking of Aziraphale’s warm lips and the breathy little noises he’d made, and the semi Crowley had felt in Aziraphale’s trousers. His frustration mounted. Here they were at a crossroads, a turning point in their relationship, and Crowley felt fragile and constipated and ragingly uncomfortable. He punched the carpet on either side of him and growled as deep and as menacingly as a hell hound.

            The Earth was still here but what did it matter? He had finally, _finally_ , kissed Aziraphale (and done so quite adequately too, he thought) after nearly six thousand years of wanting nothing more than to corrupt the little principality and now what did he have to show for it? Legs that were cramping up and going numb? No, no. This would not do. Not do at all.

            Still growling, Crowley got his feet under him and stalked down the hall, his demeanor setting his plants a-quivering. He threw open the bedroom door so hard that it crashed into the wall, startling Aziraphale not at all, as he lay in Crowley’s bed (in Crowley’s _bed_ ) with the plush black comforter up around his waist as he rested against the headboard reading a book he must have minor miracled into being (as Crowley had none of those little buggers anywhere in his home) in the light of the bedside lamp. He even had his reading glasses on, the smug bastard. And his clothes folded all neatly on the top of Crowley’s dresser. He wore instead an old fashioned white union suit that Crowley was sure he had probably gotten in the 20th century and had never stopped wearing since.

            He looked for all the world like this was exactly where he belonged and it just made Crowley angrier.

            “Listen here, you son of a… well, of God,” Crowley said, furiously pointing a finger at Aziraphale.

            “Oh, come to talk, have you?” Aziraphale said.

            “I… yes!” Crowley stomped further into the room, yellow eyes flashing. “I’ve come to call you all manner of names and say some very devastating things that are very clever and cutting and that will quite impress you by my command of language and my demonic expertise in the art of being insulting.” He continued to point at Aziraphale. “So perhaps we should skip all that and move forward to the ‘you being impressed with me’ bit. As I can assure you, I am the very best at what I do.”

            “You _are_ quite imaginative,” Aziraphale agreed rather amicably.

            “Right,” Crowley said. He started to pace at the foot of the bed. Aziraphale watched him silently, a soft smile tugging at his lips, though he did his best to hide it.

            “Now, listen,” Crowley went on. “I don’t love you. I have never loved you. I am a demon; I’m incapable of it.” He paused. “Now, you know what I _can_ do? I can lie. And I’m _very_ good at _that_.” He stopped his pacing and glowered down at Aziraphale, but then his features softened and a smile that was almost sweet unfurled from his mouth. “I hate you, Aziraphale. I hate you so much. I hate your eyes. And I hate your smile. And I hate your cute little button nose. And I really, really, _really_ hate the way you always go out of your way to feed the ducks at the park.” Despite his words, Crowley’s voice was low and gentle. “I hate that you’re always concerned about my wellbeing. I hate how you light up whenever you eat something delicious. I hate you so so much. I have never hated someone as much as I hate you. I despise you. Just loathe you to my core.”

            Crowley’s expression was so full of love, Aziraphale melted in it. He could smell it all over.

            “Oh Crowley,” he said. “I see why your side was always so smitten with you. You really are the most impeccable liar.”

            Crowley’s shoulders shot up to his ears and his face was flushed.

            “Well, come here,” Aziraphale said. And Crowley went off like a bullet, crawling up close to him in the bed. Aziraphale drew him even closer and patted his hair once again. “Even if the circumstances weren’t ideal, I’m very glad to have met you, my friend.”

            “Friend?”

            “Alright. My… hmm… ineffable lover? Boyfriend?” Aziraphale paused, eyebrows knitting together. “Husband?”

            “Just… shut up,” Crowley sighed. “Shut up.” He wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s soft middle and kissed his shoulder. And he made up his mind that he was going to make Aziraphale make much more of those delightful little noises before the morning light.

            It was the night after the End of the World and only now, at the end of the End, were things starting to make sense. Only now was everything as it should be. Only now was the ineffable a little less so.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate that I fell head over heels into this fandom (but I'm impressed with my ability to write something that isn't horny as hell).
> 
> Find me screaming incoherently on twitter: @campyalien


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